Animal Classification

This week in science we are doing a unit called "Animal Classification."  GCA, our online school, provides a good starting point with its curriculum.  I use what they provide as a jumping off part and look for some more creative ways to teach the same material.  The girls love making anything that we can hang on the wall.  They also like doing "units" where we focus on one topic for about a week. 

We started by making a big chart of the 7 types of animals, listing the characteristics of each:

 We cut out and colored the pictures provided by GCA and added them to the poster:

Catherine's word list for this week is all the terms we learned from our Animal Classification study (mammal, reptile, gills, beak, thorax, etc.).  Yesterday I had her copy the words over once.  Today I will get her to write some sentences using some of the words.  She hates creating sentences on her own, as this is a huge challenge for her.  We have to do a lot more practice on that skill.

It may sound strange, but I love that with home schooling she can have her catheter bag sitting on her desk next to her.  She is feeling well and has the energy to do school work, so we are doing that.  If she was still in regular school, I am not sure if they would let her be in the regular classroom with a catheter bag.  Plus, even if they did, I would hate the social implications of all of her peers knowing that she had a te-te bag attached to her. 

She also made a poster of "Mammal" and "Not a Mammal:"

An "Insect" and "Not an Insect" sorting activity:

In the car I had the girls watch Bill Nye the Science Guy's show about mammals.  I have a ton of books about different types of animals which we will read and discuss this week.  We may do some craft projects to coordinate with these animals.

Yesterday I bought Catherine her first dictionary and showed her how to use it (this was part of the Language Arts curriculum).  Catherine immediately wanted to look up mammal, insect, and other words we have learned in this unit.  As her copy work, I am considering having her copy some of the definitions for the science terms we have studied.

I am not sure how I can incorporate addition and subtraction into the Animal Classification unit study.  In fact, it is hard for me to get creative with math.